Los Angeles took a major step Friday toward building a downtown stadium to lure an NFL team back to the nation’s second most populous city, despite questions about how a 72,000-seat venue in the city’s urban core would impact notorious freeway traffic, nearby housing prices and air quality.

The 12–0 vote by City Council came after starkly contrasting predictions about what the $1.5 billion project would mean for an economically troubled city that has fretted over the loss of professional football since the Raiders and Rams fled Southern California in 1994.

It never ceases to amaze me how well the NFL has done despite having no presence in the second-largest media market in the country. It testifies to just how popular and economically viable the league is.